PSX 2015: Stories: The Path of Destinies Preview – Tell It Again

December 12, 2015
Written by Chandler Wood

Stories: The Path of Destinies is all about choice and learning. “Reynardo will die. A lot,” Malik Boukhira, one of the devs on the game, told me. Reynardo is the main character, an anthropomorphic fox pulled into a fight against a crazy emperor. It’s not necessarily the combat that will end you. It’s the major decisions that you’ll make for Reynardo along the way that will have major repercussions.

Malik compared it to the movie Edge of Tomorrow, the Tom Cruise movie where every time he dies he restarts his day with a full knowledge of how things went before. Cruise’s character can use his knowledge to get further through his day, solving mysteries of the war and saving lives along the way. Your first time through the game, you’ll make choices with little knowledge of how they’ll play out. Do you save the emperor’s daughter, or go after an ancient weapon that could win the war? The future knowledge that Reynardo is in love with the emperor’s daughter could alter the decisions you make.

Audiobook the Game

The stories are told through narration that’s sounds like it’s straight from an audiobook. In fact, it’s pretty much an audiobook. The narrator reads the tale, using hilarious voices for each of the characters, and following Reynardo through each of his major decisions. The choices you make will completely change the story being told, with a specific path to victory using knowledge obtained from many of the possible decisions. This not only makes the replay value in Stories very high, it pretty much makes it a necessity.

In between the major decisions gameplay is an isometric action-RPG game. Combat is visceral and feels good. Attacking enemies and getting hit are both responsive, and there’s a series of upgradeable abilities for Reynardo. Oh, and magic swords. There’s definitely magic swords that can leave opponents burning, frozen, or in a variety of other states that will make Reynardo’s job just a little bit easier. Despite not being a “storybook” section, the narrator still narrates what you are doing as you play, crafting the tale of Reynardo the fox.

The world is massive with tons of alternate paths to take in order to discover optional treasures, not to mention it’s beautiful and colorful. In my demo, I chose to value my friends, opting to save my wily rabbit pal, and of course to save the emperor’s daughter. Learning that the rabbit ends up saving himself before I can get there may mean I could choose to wield an ancient weapon of unimaginable power next time. Who knows? That specific path of destiny might just be the one that wins the war.

Stay tuned to PlayStation LifeStyle because we’ll be posting our exclusive gameplay demo session from PSX 2015 so that you can see more of the narrative and combat from Stories: The Path of Destinies in action.